Hey guys! It's been a while hasn't it? Nearly 4 months since I've posted anything on here, and really this is just to direct everyone where they can go to to hear more updates about what I'm currently doing. 

I'm back in Philadelphia, I've graduated, and I'm producing a short film. The film is known as 'Goodnight, Fish' and will be filmed in Philadelphia, and crewed by people that live in the Philadelphia area. Currently we're almost completely crewed up, we have our actor signed on and ready to go, and we have our location. The only problem is that we don't have the funds to get the camera for the shoot. 

For that reason we're raising money on Indiegogo. Yeah, I know. I don't post anything for four months and then I come back to tell you that we're running around the internet asking people to look at our fundraising page, think about donating, and then pass the link around to all of their friends and followers. It's not very fair how I've left you hanging for so long without some much as a new place you can go to to hear interesting stories about what's happening, or ask questions or see videos about what we're doing. 

To make up for this, I'm giving you two links. The first, is my new website. Just click on the orange link, and you'll be there. It's a very young website, just a few days old, but visit when you get the chance. The blog will be dedicated to explaining the process of filmmaking as well as answering questions and occasionally some posts about the ideas I have in my head or strange experiences I have in Philly (trust me, the things that happen here are weird sometimes and I like to share). 

The second link, is my youtube page. Because I have so much going on with this film, I'm offering up the chance to actually see me talk about what I'm doing. There are no videos up yet (except for a bunch of stuff from some cons), because I just had this idea, but there will be, and there will be more if you tell me what you want to hear about.

So to recap:

1: We have an indiegogo page for our short film we're making. Please check it out, support independent filmmaking by donating or sharing the link with your friends. There's some good incentives for your support, and if you have ideas for other things you'd be interested in let us know, we're always happy to include new incentives. 

2: I have a new website, the full link is: Tasarionfilms.wordpress.com

3: I have a youtube page, I'm gonna start putting it to use. Feel free to check it out and send me a message there. 

I hope everyone is doing well and if you're in the US you're surviving this insane heat. When I start to travel again I'll come back to this blog and there'll be pictures and stories for you to hear. For now though, this film is going to take priority, and I hope that you choose to experience the process with us. 

Take care,

Tasarion

I apologize if this post seems out of place, I understand this is probably not the best place for it, but this blog is supposed to be about all of my experiences travelling. I'm currently experiencing problems with some of my classmates here, and I feel it needs to be addressed so that it doesn't lead to me building up tension about it. 

I am striving to become a filmmaker. This means that I spend a lot of my life doing work that doesn't seem to you like it's work. Just because you're a "journalist" for a "newspaper" at Temple doesn't mean that you are better than me. We live two different lives, we have two different goals in said lives, and we should both work very hard to achieve what we want to. Life takes everyone down a different path and that's something you have you understand. While you work hard to find stories and tell the truth to the entire world, I work hard to write or find stories to tell people to help them escape from and accept the truth of the world. Both of these things are very important in society and neither should be looked down upon (unless, maybe, the job is being done wrongly or harmfully). 

I believe that we can all get along well enough just by not being nasty. However, if you are nasty to me I will not just sit here and take it. I will come and find you and talk to you in person, and if that leads to unhappy things being said, or our ability to be in the same room being shattered, then so be it. I graduate in 63 days and will probably never see you again, so I'm not heartbroken. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope that you can learn to understand that there are people out there that are different from you. It may be time to break out of your comfort zones that this digital ages has created for you and experience some new things. I truly hope this possible for you, but if it's not, I hope you enjoy living your safe life. 


Now that that's over we'll be back to our normal programming later this week. Tomorrow I work at the premiere of Mark's film, and then Saturday we're going to Brighton. It should be fun as long as no one ends up in the ocean. 

Take care, and be proud of what you do, stand up for what you believe in, and don't let others get you down. I know I still have some work to do on that last part, but I'm making progress.

Tasarion

I wrote this last night, but fell asleep before I got a chance to post it, so read it as if it was written yesterday :P

The past few days have been a bit wild. Wednesday I went to Westminster Abbey and walked on and saw the graves of people like TS Eliot, Lewis Carrol, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, and Geoffrey Chaucer. There are pictures of the outside and hallways here (You're not allowed pictures inside the church):

Westminster

Thursday I had my internship. We went to a motorbike show to film promos for "I, Superbiker" but I think the most exciting bit was when I found an orange Triumph that was actually small enough for me. It was so beautiful..I didn't have my camera with me, but I'm trying to find a picture so I can show you all. When we got back I was sat down with some broken lights and told to fix them. It took a bit to figure out some of them but I feel very good that I was able to get them all repaired. 

Today at work was the big day. We were shooting a music video for the band Man Raze. If you haven't heard of them they consist of Simon Laffy, the guitarist from Girl, Phil Collen, the guitarist from Girl and Def Leppard, and Paul Cook, the drummer from The Sex Pistols. We started the day by cleaning the entire studio (the entire office is friends with these guys, but they always want to impress them). I now know that every light works, where it is, where its stand is, and where every cord we could ever need is. Once we finished wrapping cords and organizing lenses it was time to set up the studio to shoot. Paul had called ahead and asked Nick and Liam to set up his drumkit, but neither knew how, and everyone else is just a frontman for their bands and didn't know either. The task fell to me. 

As they were bringing the drums down I was already nervous. This was Paul Cook's drumset and I was going to set it up? They brought all the cases down and left me with them. I nearly died when I opened a case and saw which set it was.

Yeah. It was his Union Jack Sex Pistols drum kit. After calming down and double checking that I was actually allowed to touch it I built him the set almost perfectly (one cymbal out of place). While we waited for him to show up I played with the camera using the drumset as my subject. I'm finally becoming more comfortable with cameras. 

When Paul finally showed up we were introduced and he told Nick that he did a wonderful job setting up his drums. Nick was kind enough to give me my credit and Paul complimented me on my ability to put a kit together. I got a compliment from a Sex Pistol! (None of my roommates understand why this is so exciting to me, so I'm gonna brag about it here). He and I talked about music for a bit and about why I was there before we started shooting. Getting to watch him play so close up was incredible. 

When we were done Christian and Paul were talking and I heard my name come up so I walked over and they were talking about getting me a signed pair of Paul's drumsticks as 'payment' for my internship. Paul says I'll have them sometime before April, which will be so incredible. 

The other guys were cool as well, the whole shoot only took about an hour though so it was very short. I love The Sex Pistols, and I love Def Leppard so today was very exciting for me. When the music video's done I'll post a link to it so you can all see. 

Time to head out for the day!

Tasarion

PIctures of Westmister Abbey

Pictures of Paul's drumset

Pictures of my first proper night out

Today was interesting. I got to work early so I could help set up the shoot that we were doing for the York Dungeons. I was given the task of setting up the lighting, which is really exciting since it was only my second day actually in the studio. It was green screen though so it just meant getting lighting that was even and bright enough until the actor showed up to stand in one place and read off a teleprompter. Easy job right? If only. When the actor showed up, he told us he couldn't read without his glasses, and didn't own contacts. The next 4 hours were spent finding a place he could get some. Once he finally was set it took him 5 hours to get through 3.5 minutes of dialogue. Read off the prompter. Standing in one place. Film and television would be so perfect if it didn't involve working with actors. Seriously, if you are an actor learn to take direction. It will make your life, and our lives so much easier. 

While he was out for 4 hours getting the contacts me and Nick spent some time playing with the camera set up. We ended up setting it up on 6 building blocks, a tripod, a c-stand, a box, a scaffolding, two "magic arms" and a strip of camera tape. This is what some of it looked like:

Once I finally was able to leave I was feeling very confident in my ability to make the most of this internship and impress the people I'm working for. 

2 hours later I got home, and when I walked in everyone gave me a very strange welcome home, so I left the room to put my stuff away. When I got back to the kitchen there was pizza for us all from Toya and it was amazingly delicious. Once everyone was sitting down again I was told that it was my belated birthday party. I got a card that was signed by everyone, and then two of the most delicious cupcakes ever (each of which with a candle). It was amazing, and I really appreciated that everyone was there and did that for me. I'm so lucky I got put in the flat with the people that I did. 

Links to updated pictures:

Field Trip

Internship

Birthday Party

Tomorrow we have a field trip, I'm not telling you where, I'll just post pictures and maybe some stories tomorrow. For now I need to go to bed. 

Goodnight,

Tasarion